Not Applicable.
The invention relates generally to patient care and more particularly to the monitoring of a patient""s condition. and the issue of an alarm when a predetermined criteria is met.
A variety of personal condition indicators may require monitoring in various patient care settings, including home care, nursing home, and hospital environments. Consistent quality monitoring is frequently compromised, however, in each setting. In a home setting, trained personnel are typically not available or affordable, for example, and care can easily be overlooked. Similarly, trained nursing care personnel are commonly limited in a nursing home setting. This may result from limited funding or cost reduction pressures. This may also result from unusual or unforeseen circumstances in which more patients require attention from trained personnel at a given time than was expected or forecasted. That is to say, merely the inherent unpredictability of nursing care may result in a personnel short fall.
Even in a hospital setting, personnel resources may fall short for some, if not all, of the same reasons as noted above. Further, the demands of an operating theatre can cause a lapse in patient monitoring. To say the very least, any effective assistance that may facilitate or enhance the work of an operating room nurse is clearly desirable. Even the smallest detail can make a life or death difference in surgery, including not requiring the time to identify which of several sockets on a piece of equipment is the correct socket, for example.
Accordingly, a patient monitor of the invention has an information processor, an information display, a control or selector, at least two sensor sockets, and at least two patient sensors. The sockets are substantially identical with a number of socket connectors and are electrically connected in parallel with one another. One of the sensors monitors one aspect of a patient""s condition and generates a signal to the information processor accordingly. A second sensor monitors a second aspect of a patient""s condition and generates a signal to the information processor accordingly. Each of the patient sensors plugs into any of the sensor sockets. The sensor sockets and the sensors have connectors that connect when the sensors are plugged into the sockets. Not all of the connectors are used by a sensor, however, so the patient monitor identifies and differentiates each sensor not by which socket it is plugged into, but by which plug and socket connectors are used.